Hello there! Welcome to my first ever RMT. I've recently gotten into competitive Pokemon battling and I wanted to make a Nat Dex team based on zeraroa. This is more of a bulky offense or balance team that I've had some decent success with but I wanted to see how it can be improved to deal with some issues that I've noticed.
The Team:
Zeraora @ Life Orb
Ability: Volt Absorb
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Plasma Fists
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Volt Switch
Pretty standard zeraroa set that I went with; nothing out of this world. Plasma fists is my electric STAB, close combat is coverage, knock off to punish switch-ins and volt switch for fast pivoting. I was debating on other coverage moves like fire punch to beat bulky grass types and hp ice to beat ground types but I couldn't find a way to fit them in.
Kyurem @ Icium Z
Ability: Pressure
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 56 HP / 200 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Freeze-Dry
- Earth Power
- Substitute
- Roost
Obviously, ground types are zeraroa's biggest concern, so I had to get a good ice pokemon. Kyurem made for an obvious partner. I went for a standard sub-roost set with 56 hp evs so its sub can't be broken by blissey seismic toss and rotom volt switch. Freeze dry was chosen over ice beam for better match ups against water types.
Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Focus Blast
- Hidden Power [Fire]
Tapu Lele became my choice scarf user on this team. I feel that it is arguably the strongest tapu and with choice scarf, it becomes so damn good. Psychic is chosen over psyshock as I preferred the higher damage output plus the latter can't 2HKO blissey or chansey without a crit. Moonblast is fairy STAB, hp fire to beat specific steel types (think mega scizor and ferrothorn) and focus blast is there for heatran.
Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 112 Def / 144 Spe
Impish Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- U-turn
For my stealth rocker, I picked, surprise surprise, lando-t. Went for a more defensive set with leftover for recovery. Stealth rock cos hazards are pretty much mandatory on any team, earthquake hits much of the metagame hard, stone edge is mainly to deal with zapdos and volcarona though it also hits pretty hard and I have u-turn for pivoting. Stone edge initially was hp ice to beat any gliscors or opposing lando-ts along with garchomp, but other than that, it's pretty useless considering how I already have an ice pokemon.
Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hydro Pump
- Thunder Wave
- Defog
- Pain Split
Now for my defogger. This one was quite a problem. My team was pretty weak to volcarona which is a massive threat in the metagame. I wanted a bulky defogger that could also reliably deal with volcarona. Rotom-wash can take a hit from volcarona at +1 before throwing off a thunder wave to cripple it. This rotom-w is more specially defensive to deal with the aforementioned volcarona. Plus, most common grass attacks I've seen tend to be special (grassy glide is an exception). Also, rather than using volt switch on my rotom-w like a normal person, I chose pain split for a better, albeit inconsistent, recovery method than simply leftovers.
Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Ability: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Gyro Ball
- Leech Seed
- Spikes
- Power Whip
Last but not least, we have ferrothorn. It's yet another response to ground types and works fairly well against fairy types (until they pull out some fire coverage). Other than that, this is a pretty standard physically defensive ferrothorn set. Gyro ball for steel and power whip for strong STAB, spikes cos you can't have too many hazards and leech seed for some nice recovery.
That's an overview of my team. Of course, it has several notable issues which I have noticed:
1) This team has no megas. Obviously that isn't mandatory and I couldn't really add one but I wanted to get your opinions on what kind of mega could work for my team.
2) Mega Charizard Y happens to be an issue. I don't have many good switch-ins to it. Lando-t gets 2HKO and rotom-w is almost 2HKO by flamethrower + solar beam and hydro pump won't do much damage due to sun so I often have to let something die so that I can bring in lele to 2HKO it with psychic which also gets 2HKO.
3) Urshifu-rapid-strike also tears through my team. With choice band, it can almost 1HKO my entire team. Only zeraroa and lele can outspeed it but they still get hit hard by aqua jet.
4) None of my pokemon know any priority moves. While this isn't really an issue, this makes revenge kiling set up sweepers all the more difficult.
That's it for my RMT. Thank you for taking the time to read and rate my team. Please tell me how I can improve the team to better deal with the previously mentioned issues and do let me know if there are other issues that I missed out. Thanks!
Last edited:
